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gryphon00's blog

Okay... let me preface by saying that I hate blocking. Knitting I like. But the thought of dealing with all those little pins makes me cringe. Invariably some of them will find their way to the carpet in an attempt to attack my unsuspecting feet like a very pissed off rattlesnake but without the warning.

So... because of this, I decided to get a little more crafty and made a blocking frame using the instructions from KnitPicks. The thing is huge. It's a 6' square with 1' legs... so 6'x7' total. You can make a smaller one of course with very little math effort, but I wanted the full size deal since I'll be blocking shawls and such. Pictures are attached if you wanna take a look.

I plan on doing is getting a set of blocking wires to use with it. That should help in keeping the tension even along the straight edges. I haven't had a chance to string anything up on it yet, but I'm looking forward to it. From what I hear, when you get used to doing it, blocking goes much faster. That's what I'm hoping.

So do any of you guys have experience using a blocking frame and have any tips?

Hey guys. It's been a while since I've posted so I thought I'd say hey to all the old and new faces round here. There are some talented new guys around here and I, for one, appreciate seeing what everyone is working on.

I was asked by a friend a couple weeks ago to finish an afghan that his new girlfriend's grandmother started before she passed away. He wants to give it to her for her graduation in a few weeks. He brought me her project and the pattern and I finished it up last night. Just have to weave in the ends and give it a quick wash and it'll be ready. Then I can get back to the candle flame shawl I was working on.

I also got a great deal on some yarn last weekend. I went with a friend to a yard sale and as we were leaving, I looked down into a box and saw the edge of a skein of yarn so I took a look. When I dug everything out from the bottom of the box, there were the following:

... thank god.
Ya know, having a deadline for knitted gifts really can frazzle a fella. Yall should warn people. :-) I think there should be a list... "100 things you should know before knitting Christmas gifts"

Well, since it's done I thought I'd post a shameless picture of the blanket I made from the counterpane squares a while back. I used some Caron Simply Soft from Wally World. Eh... it worked. Sorry you can't see lots of detail in the pics. It was the first lace-type thing I'd done. I forgot to take the pictures before I wrapped em up. Oops. The second picture has the niece and my brother holding it.

I completely forgot to take pictures of the other gifts I knitted up. Two stockings (on for the bro holding the blanket and the other for his cute dog), three scarves, the blanket and the Peacock Feathers shawl from Fiddlesticks Knitting (link: http://www.fiddlesticksknitting.com/PeacockLarge.html ) I don't have pictures of the shawl yet. I'll take em after it gets blocked. Tho I'm not sure how I'm gonna block the damn thing. It's HUGE and I don't have the bed space nor the open floor space where the dog won't run around. I think I'll call the LYS's and see if they'll block it for me.

Well got both of my clogs knitted up. The first is complete and the second has almost all the ends woven in. The second one went sooooo much better than the first. No short row and miscounting fiascoes that I could find. (Note: The left one in the pic is the 2nd clog knitted. The right one is the 1st.) Up to this point I haven't seen any pictures of the soles and the seaming there so I posted a pic of one. The pattern says to seam them loosely so I hope I did that right and they don't bunch up. If so, mom will just have to walk to imperfections out.

Thought I'd post a pic of the first of (probably) many Christmas stockings for family members. It hasn't been blocked yet, so maybe I can get some up of "lumps" out of the sides... we'll see.But I'm pretty pleased with it. It's amazing what you learn just *doing* a project, huh? Oh... if you squint a little when you look at it, it looks better. heheh